How To Tell If Someone Is Controlled Opposition

Every day in my article comments and social media I get people warning me that this or that journalist, activist or politician is “controlled opposition”, meaning someone who pretends to oppose the establishment while covertly serving it. These warnings usually come after I’ve shared or written about something a dissident figure has said or done, and are usually accompanied by an admonishment not to ever do so again lest I spread their malign influence. If you’ve been involved in any kind of anti-establishment activism for any length of time, you’ve probably encountered this yourself.

Paranoia pervades dissident circles of all sorts, and it’s not entirely without merit, since establishment infiltration of political movements is the norm, not the exception. This article by Truthout documents multiple instances in which movements like the 1968 Chicago DNC protest and Peter Camejo’s 1976 anti-establishment presidential campaign were so heavily infiltrated by opaque government agencies that one out of every six people involved in them were secretly working for the feds. This trend of infiltration is known to have continued into the current day with movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, and we’d be ignorant not to assume that this has been at least as rampant in online circles where people organize and disseminate ideas and information.

So it’s understandable that people are extremely vigilant about prominent figures in dissident circles, and it’s understandable that people feel paranoid. Over and over again we see shining anti-establishment movements fizzle or rendered impotent, often seemingly with the help of people we once trusted, and it’s hard not to get frustrated and become suspicious of anyone who starts shining bright in antiwar, leftist, or other dissident circles.

The trouble with this paranoia and suspicion is that it doesn’t seem to function with any kind of intelligence. I have received such “controlled opposition” warnings about pretty much every prominent dissident figure in the English-speaking world at one time or another, and if I believed them all there’d be no one in the world whose words I could share or write about, including my own. I myself have been accused at different times of being a “plant” for the CIA, the Russians, Assad, the Chinese Communist Party, the Iranian mullahs, the alt-right, Trump, Pyongyang, and the Palestinians, which if all true would make me a very busy girl indeed. Since I know I’m not a plant for anybody, I know for myself that such accusations don’t come from a place of insight with any degree of reliability, and I’ve therefore had to find my own way to navigate this confusing landscape.

So since I know that infiltration and manipulation happens, but I don’t find other people’s whisperings about “controlled opposition” useful, how do I figure out who’s trustworthy and who isn’t? How do I figure out who it’s safe to cite in my work and who to avoid? How do I separate the fool’s gold from the genuine article? The shit from the Shinola?

Here is my answer: I don’t.

I spend no mental energy whatsoever concerning myself with who may or may not be a secret pro-establishment influencer, and for good reason. There’s no way to know for sure if an individual is secretly scheming to sheep dog the populace into support for the status quo, and as long as government agencies remain opaque and unaccountable there will never be a way to know who might be secretly working for them. What I can know is (A) what I’ve learned about the world, (B) the ways the political/media class is lying about what I know about the world, and (C) when someone says something which highlights those lies. I therefore pay attention solely to the message, and no attention to what may or may not be the hidden underlying agenda of the messenger.

In other words, if someone says something which disrupts establishment narratives, I help elevate what they’re saying in that specific instance. I do this not because I know that the speaker is legit and uncorrupted, but because their message in that moment is worthy of elevation. You can navigate the entire political/media landscape in this way.

Since society is made of narrative and power ultimately rests in the hands of those who are able to control those narratives, it makes no sense to fixate on individuals and it makes perfect sense to focus on narrative. What narratives are being pushed by those in power? How are those narratives being disrupted, undermined and debunked by things that are being said by dissident voices? This is the most effective lens through which to view the battle against the unelected power establishment which is crushing us all to death, not some childish fixation on who should or shouldn’t be our hero.

Have no heroes. Trust nobody but your own inner sense-maker. If someone says something that disrupts establishment narratives based on what you understand those narratives to be, go ahead and help throw what they’re saying into the gears of the machine. Don’t make a religion out of it, don’t get attached to it, just use it as a weapon to attack the narrative matrix.

This by the way is also a useful lens to look through in spiritual development, if you’re into that sort of thing. When you enter spiritual circles concerned with enlightenment, you’ll see all sorts of debates about what teachers are really enlightened and which ones are just pretending, and these conversations mimic precisely the exact kinds of debates you’ll see in marginalized political circles about who’s the real deal and who’s controlled opposition. But the truth is there’s no way to know with certainty what’s going on in someone else’s head, and the best thing to do is to stop concerning yourself with who has and has not attained some special realization or whatever and just focus on what they’re saying. If a spiritual teacher says something which helps you notice something you’d never noticed before about consciousness or perception, then use what they said and maybe stick around to see if they have anything else useful to say. If not, move on.

There’s no reason to worry about what journalists, activists and politicians are coming from a place of authenticity if you know yourself to be coming from a place of authenticity. As you learn more about the world and get better at distinguishing fact from narrative, you will get better and better at seeing the narrative matrix clearly, and you’ll come to see all the things that are being said about what’s going on in the world as weapons in the battle of narrative control. Pick up whatever weapons seem useful to you and use them in whatever ways they’ll be useful, without wasting energy concerning yourself with the individuals who created them. Call the bullshit what it is and use the truth for what it is.

Or maybe I’m fulla shit! Maybe I myself am being paid to say these things by some powerful influencer; you can’t know for sure. All you can know is what’s useful for you. If you really find it useful to try and organize individual dissident figures into “hero” and “controlled opposition” boxes, if that genuinely helps you take apart the system that’s hurting us all, you’d know that better than I would. But if you find what I’m saying here useful, pick it up and add it to your toolbox.

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Gil/June 21, 2019

At least regarding the spiritual part, I strongly disagree. If one is unlucky enough to find his way into a cult, that’d be the worst possible advice. Anyone who reads the literature about cults will find the first observation about such groups is “content doesn’t matter”. A cult could be about anything, from spirituality, to politics, gardening, or martial arts. There’s nothing “wrong” per se in martial arts, and a leader of a spiritual cult could have all the “right” content (he could pick it up from just about any source). The content in these cases is just the bait, the superficial stuff hiding what’s really happening behind the scenes – the mind control techniques, manipulative group dynamics, tactical and coordinated psychological pressure, etc’. Staying for the content while disregarding the underlying medium would be the worst course of action. Perhaps it is different when the context is less personal as in reading political essays, but anyone who actually takes part in a -personal- process of spiritual guidance should definitely look beyond the content of the words his spiritual teacher says. We are human beings with bodies and psychological tendencies, not abstract minds floating in a platonic world of ideas, and it’d be wise to respect that.

Excavator/April 6, 2019

To point out how important detection of controlled opposition/COINTELPRO is, just ask the victims of COINTELPRO. The activists in the british peace movement got infiltrated by the undercover agents to such a degree that they ended up having kids with the undercover agents… unwittingly….

Stuart Davies/February 12, 2019

I’m kinda surprised to see this bit here: “The trouble with this paranoia and suspicion is that it doesn’t seem to function with any kind of intelligence…I know for myself that such accusations don’t come from a place of insight with any degree of reliability…So since I know that infiltration and manipulation happens, but I don’t find other people’s whisperings about “controlled opposition” useful, how do I figure out who’s trustworthy and who isn’t? How do I figure out who it’s safe to cite in my work and who to avoid? How do I separate the fool’s gold from the genuine article? The shit from the Shinola? Here is my answer: I don’t.”

So, first you tell us “I’ve therefore had to find my own way to navigate this confusing landscape”, and then say “How do I separate the fool’s gold from the genuine article? The shit from the Shinola? Here is my answer: I don’t.”?

Surely you jest! May I suggest an alternative navigation process?

I have one very simple and reliable test that I apply to the words I read or hear coming from given individuals: Do they reflect or support any aspect of the general war propaganda or other prevalent propaganda/misinformation narratives of the corporate state? If the answer to that question is yes – and this should be readily apparent to any reasonably intelligent, reasonably well informed individual – then in that specific case at least, this individual is serving as a propagandist for the corporate empire.

Cut and dried. Dead. Fucking. Simple.

Does this mean that the individual in question is a witting, paid agent of the empire? Not necessarily. Does this mean that everything they have ever said on similar or unrelated subjects is automatically false, invalid, or corporate state propaganda? Of course not! Should we not consider the merit of specific ideas and narratives on a case by case basis, regardless of who utters them? Absolutely!

How hard is that?

Does the distinction between an unwitting, unbought propagandist and a witting, paid propagandist even matter? Yes and no. Considering the specific words uttered in that one particular instance, it might be argued that it does not matter in the slightest whether an individual is witting or unwitting – in that specific case they are promoting at least one element of a propaganda narrative of the corporate state, regardless.

However, if we factor in ethical considerations, personal and intellectual integrity, the frequency of such utterances, and a larger pattern of deceit wherein such utterances are deliberately hidden within a larger body of words which present valid criticisms of the predatory or imperialistic designs of the corporate empire – then beyond any reasonable doubt, it does indeed matter. Intent matters. It is a bit like the distinction between manslaughter and murder, or first and third degree murder.

We are talking about the deliberate intention to gull unwary progressive readers into swallowing the occasional bits of corporate state propaganda – key falsehoods, suggestive ideas, misleading memes, subtle fragments of misdirection – after the hook has been baited with a liberal application of progressive oriented words. This is the classic MO of the witting corporate state co-opted “left” gate keeper, and they most assuredly do exist, and have existed for the better part of the last century, as we can see here:

“The detailed and engrossing 2008 book, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America, by Hugh Wilford, investigates the CIA’s ideological struggle from 1947 to 1967 to win “hearts and minds” for US capitalism and prosecute the Cold War.

It was a dirty business. The CIA devised schemes to create or utilize existing social organizations, phony pass-through entities, universities, various media, artist groups, foundations and charities to service its propaganda wars—attempting to place a “progressive” and even “humanitarian” veneer upon America’s expanding grip.

Despite the passage of time since the book’s release, it remains a pertinent read for its exposure of the modus operandi of the CIA’s ideological campaigns and the role of a section of the liberal intelligentsia in supporting it. It is an eye-opener, particularly for a younger generation that has been subjected to a decades-long, non-stop attempt to whitewash the CIA and US militarism. One gets a picture of the ferociously antidemocratic and reactionary operations of US imperialism and its intelligence apparatus, a clear demonstration of the thoroughly criminal and deceitful nature of American capitalism.

Most important of all, the reader comes away with a sense of the immense significance attributed by the American ruling elite to the ideological struggle against socialism.

The author correctly emphasizes, “If anything, these practices have intensified in recent years, with the ‘war on terror’ recreating the conditions of total mobilization that prevailed in the first years of the Cold War.” He adds that the agency is “a growing force on campus.”[3]

The metaphor—a “Mighty Wurlitzer”—was coined by Frank Wisner, the head of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), a paramilitary and psychological operations group created in 1948, which was folded into the CIA in 1951. He prided himself on directing the network of organizations to play any propaganda tune on demand, likening it to the world-famous theater organ.

The agency sought out those who might be predisposed in a socialistic direction, targeting constituencies that had grievances with the status quo. It selected representatives from ethnic groups, women, African-Americans, labor, intellectuals and academics, students, Catholics, and artists and organized them into various front groups to promote anticommunism. These links, in turn, provided the agency with the cover it needed to influence strategically important sectors of foreign populations.

Ironically, as the federal government was conducting its House Un-American Activities witch-hunts and assembling the attorney general’s List of Subversive Organizations, supposedly to ferret out Communist Party “front groups,” the CIA was busy doing precisely that—creating front groups of thousands of unwitting Americans for covert political operations.

The book exposes how “radical” and “ex-radical,” labor, artistic and middle class people, a section of the American liberal intelligentsia, found themselves part of this “Wurlitzer.” [4] Significantly, this included a layer of former Communist Party members and fellow-travelers, such as novelist Richard Wright, who were disillusioned by their experience with the reactionary Stalinized party, did not find their way into the Trotskyist movement, and tragically ended up in the arms of the American intelligence apparatus.

The agency exerted its control over these widely disparate and sometimes rancorous groups primarily through two methods. The first was the dispensation of large sums of cash—funneled either through corporations such as ITT, wealthy individuals or foundations. The second means was the vetting and grooming of the leaderships of these front groups, with the chosen individuals subjected to secrecy oaths.

Wilford explains how secrecy oaths were implemented in the case of the CIA-controlled National Student Association (NSA). “When the CIA judged it necessary to have an unwitting [uninformed of CIA control] officer made aware of the true source of the organization’s funds, a meeting would be arranged between the individual concerned, a witting colleague and a former NSA officer who had gone on to join the Agency. At a prearranged signal, the witting staffer would leave the room. The CIA operative (still identified only as ex-NSA) would explain that the unwitting officer had to swear a secrecy oath before being apprised of some vital secret, and after getting the officer to sign a formal pledge, the operative would then reveal the Agency’s hand in the Association’s affairs.”

Oaths were not just for effect. Violation carried a possible 20-year prison sentence. In later years, some of the witting later denounced the operation as entrapment and complained that they were “duped into a relationship with the CIA.” Others were in political agreement and/or saw working with the agency as a solid career move.” https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/17/wur1-a17.html

Can we know beyond any shadow of doubt whether or not an individual is a witting propagandist of the corporate state? As a matter of fact, in some cases we have actually seen such smoking gun proof, derived from congressional investigations such as the Senate Church Committee hearings in the 1970’s, which released numerous government intelligence agency documents and testimony naming specific names of high level media figures that willingly collaborated with the CIA, pushing scripted propaganda narratives on specified subjects as well as frequently suppressing coverage on other issues.

But as a general rule, you are correct. The answer would be no, usually we can’t know beyond ANY shadow of doubt. But in many of these cases, based upon the track record of an individual over time and the degree to which it corresponds to the above described MO of the “left” gatekeeper, combined with important clues as to where they get their funding (follow the money!), we can surmise with a reasonable degree of certainty whether we are looking at manslaughter or murder.

So, is it safe to cite a murderer in your writing, ever? I guess that’s a judgement call, something we all have to decide for ourselves. I’d say it depends. I’ve seen some very profound and insightful truths stated by confessed murderers. And I’ve also seen some very valid points and undeniable truths stated by a number of individuals I consider to undoubted witting “left” gate keepers for the corporate empire. It always goes back to the basic idea of considering the merit of specific ideas and narratives on a case by case basis, regardless of the source, regardless of what that individual has stated on other subjects at other times. It is probably wise to include some sort of qualifying caveat if you do cite them, however – as you astutely did with Mike Cernovich.

Orlando/February 12, 2019

“Any observer of Washington politics knows that this is no exaggeration when it comes to the power of pro-Israel money.

It’s scarcely a secret that Donald Trump’s insistence on recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US embassy there was in fulfillment of a promise to Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire pro-Israel mogul who is the biggest donor to the president and the Republican Party.

The influence of Adelson’s cash on US foreign policy has been enormous, even if media refuse to talk about it.”

ROD/February 12, 2019

“It’s scarcely a secret that Donald Trump’s insistence on recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US embassy there was in fulfillment of a promise to Sheldon Adelson…” . Repeating your BS, now you’ve come up with some blog post to confirm your bias again – on multiple threads! How did your confirmation bias work out last time? I’m no Adelson fan but let’s look at how uniformed your conclusion about Trump’s motivation really is. You stated this the last time (just a few days ago): . “Moving the US embassy by Trump and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (something no other US president has ever done) should be a huge red flag.” – Orlando, from the Bat Shit Crazy thread. . Then after some 5 eyes nonsense where you cited Wikipedia, I corrected you in the nicest way and suggested that you were being victimized by your own confirmation bias. Since you choose to continue spewing from ignorance and you’ve indicated you see Wikipedia as a trusted source, try this: . “During the 1992 presidential election Bill Clinton promised that his administration would ‘support Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel…'” . “In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which declared that .Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel.’ The bill also stated that the American embassy should move to Jerusalem within five years. ” . “During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush criticized Clinton for not moving the embassy as he had promised to do, and said he planned on initiating the process himself as soon as he was elected….” . “In 2008, then Democratic candidate Barack Obama called Jerusalem the ‘capital of Israel’….”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_recognition_of_Jerusalem_as_capital_of_Israel . The root word of ignorance is ignore. You have to ignore a lot of FACTUAL history to make your claim. In your case, it appears to be willful.

PB/February 16, 2019

S/February 12, 2019

Roland Angle graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a BS in civil engineering. He served in the U.S. Army special forces, where he was trained for the use of explosives, and became a licensed civil engineer in California. His 50 years of engineering experience has included designing and testing of blast-hardened missile launch facilities and designing U.S. Naval explosives containers, harbor terminal facilities, earth foundation systems, and hydraulic systems. In addition, Roland has owned three construction companies and has taught engineering subjects to high school students. Here’s what Roland says on WTC Building 7:

Well, talking about Building 7 first, very briefly, we’ve shown that the initiating event that NIST claims set off the building failure could not possibly have happened. There are four — at least four — good reasons for why that couldn’t have happened. And they involve the fact that NIST misrepresented the condition that they said led to the failure. NIST said that the beams were heated and [that the beams] pushed a girder off of its seat. Well, we’ve shown that even if the beams were heated to the temperature that NIST said they were, they couldn’t have expanded enough to push the girder off of its seat.

They misrepresented the seat itself — the dimensions of the seat. They shortened it to make it appear as if the girder could have come off the seat. They left off stiffeners at the end of the girder that would have prevented the lower flange from failing even if it had been able to be pushed off the seat. They left off stiffener plates at the column that would have prevented the girder from moving off of its seat. They left off the studs on top of the girder that secured it to the concrete, which would have prevented it from moving independently of the floor and being pushed off of its seat. So there’s all kinds of reasons, physical reasons, that the initiating event could not possibly have happened. Those are indisputable. Those are just facts. That’s mechanics of materials. That’s an accurate depiction of the condition that we started with. NIST failed in those areas. So, in the very beginning, the initiating event couldn’t have occurred. And if the initiating event couldn’t have occurred, well, then, the entire building wouldn’t have failed. You’ve got to have something that starts it. Their starting event, we’ve proven, couldn’t possibly have happened.

Then they said that girder fell down and knocked the girder below it off the column and led to a cascade of floors all the way down to the 5th floor from the 13th floor. We proved that that couldn’t possibly have happened either: The girder falling couldn’t have knocked the girder below it off of its seat and led to a cascade. So the cascade couldn’t have occurred. And then they said that that cascade of floors led to a buckling of that column, and that column buckling led to the columns adjacent to it buckling, and all the core columns failed, and that, in turn, caused the exterior columns to fail, and that led to the global collapse of the building.

Well, all those things [are not true], because the initiating event couldn’t have occurred and because the cascading floors couldn’t have occurred. We even showed that the column, according to their own information, wasn’t unsupported for a length enough to cause that column to buckle, so the column couldn’t have buckled. So their whole chain of events was proven to be impossible according to the physical data and according to their own information. So that completely disproves their theory and calls for a new investigation that would involve the examination that possibly explosives were used.

“There’s no way to know for sure if an individual is secretly scheming to sheep dog the populace into support for the status quo, and as long as government agencies remain opaque and unaccountable there will never be a way to know who might be secretly working for them.”

Let’s take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. How is it that a person who espouses many key progressive points gets so much publicity from the corporate press? According to your guidelines here, we should support her, because of what she says. Here’s my meme on AOC:

Ocasio-Cortez is a fake progressive. The sole mission of fake progressives, vis-a-vis their puppet masters, is to keep real progressives from voting for actual progressive third-party candidates. Talk is cheap, and that is as far as any “progressive” ideas get in the Congress, unless they are used as a bait and switch to maintain blue party branding, like gay rights (given and taken away to create distraction and division) or social security (the funds for which have been stolen and the program itself has been switched from an insurance fund annuity to an entitlement).

Ocasio-Cortez lifted the Green New Deal whole cloth from ‪Jill Stein‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬. Her platform is a total rip-off and she has given no credit to those she stole it from. Further, Ocasio-Cortez does not understand the details of the Green New Deal. This is why her tax proposals are uninformed. If she did understand it, then she would know the platform includes making the Fed a publicly controlled central bank. The Fed is the source of power of the Anglo-Euro-American banking cartel that controls the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and many other nations.

Public control over the Fed would end profiteering on war, healthcare, education, and most other markets, would quickly eliminate the nation debt (since we would no longer be paying principal and interest on private bank notes created from thin air and passed off as our “legal tender”), and the imbedded 30 to 40% interest in the cost of goods and services, which eats away at our productive capacity, would also disappear. It would also make most taxes irrelevant. So, her proposal for a 70% tax rate on high incomes is completely within the blue-red political party marketing brand charade.

The same applies to her notion of “democratic socialism.” If the Fed remains under private control, then there will be no democracy or socialism, except for the 1%.

And there’s more. Ocasio-Cortez called John McCain a war hero. There is no one who was in the streets in the late ‘60’s protesting the war in Vietnam that would call anyone dropping napalm, agent orange, and bombs on the Vietnamese a war hero. McCain was a war criminal.

Also, for Speaker of the House, Ocasio-Cortez supported Pelosi, who oversees the blue party Congresspersons’ voting assignments, which allows some brand maintenance while ensuring that the cartel’s objective are met. As per the plan of creating a dead-end for the Green New Deal, Pelosi has already refused to consider it. Pelosi is another war criminal complicit in funding the illegal wars of our military.

Finally, two false assumptions made by those whose consciousness remains within the blue political party marketing brand charade: 1) that Ocasio-Cortez is receiving publicity because she is the real deal; on the contrary, no real progressive gets the kind of publicity that Ocasio-Cortez is getting from the corporate press without being a tool of that power structure; and, 2) that the voting system by which Ocasio-Cortez was selected is verifiable—it is not. In fact, independent exit polls prove the U.S. voting system is hacked, not by “Russians,” but by those who manufacture and program the electronic voting and counting machines.

Orlando/February 12, 2019

inforebelscum/February 12, 2019

Robert, good take. The Little Girl is clearly being handled by someone for some purpose. What is that purpose? Her New Green Bullshit is proof that she is a tool for TPTB. One cannot support both a revolution against TPTB and her New Green Power Grab for TPTB.

Yes, the appropriation of the Green New Deal from the Green Party is definitely aimed and driving all of these initiatives into the ground.

Here’s my meme on this, tying it to Ocasio-Cortez’ “meteoric” rise:

Ocasio-Cortez is a fake progressive. The sole mission of fake progressives, vis-a-vis their puppet masters, is to keep real progressives from voting for actual progressive third-party candidates. Talk is cheap, and that is as far as any “progressive” ideas get in the Congress, unless they are used as a bait and switch to maintain blue party branding, like gay rights (given and taken away to create distraction and division) or social security (the funds for which have been stolen and the program itself has been switched from an insurance fund annuity to an entitlement).

Ocasio-Cortez lifted the Green New Deal whole cloth from ‪Jill Stein‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬. Her platform is a total rip-off and she has given no credit to those she stole it from. Further, Ocasio-Cortez does not understand the details of the Green New Deal. This is why her tax proposals are uninformed. If she did understand it, then she would know the platform includes making the Fed a publicly controlled central bank. The Fed is the source of power of the Anglo-Euro-American banking cartel that controls the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and many other nations.

Public control over the Fed would end profiteering on war, healthcare, education, and most other markets, would quickly eliminate the nation debt (since we would no longer be paying principal and interest on private bank notes created from thin air and passed off as our “legal tender”), and the imbedded 30 to 40% interest in the cost of goods and services, which eats away at our productive capacity, would also disappear. It would also make most taxes irrelevant. So, her proposal for a 70% tax rate on high incomes is completely within the blue-red political party marketing brand charade.

The same applies to her notion of “democratic socialism.” If the Fed remains under private control, then there will be no democracy or socialism, except for the 1%.

And there’s more. Ocasio-Cortez called John McCain a war hero. There is no one who was in the streets in the late ‘60’s protesting the war in Vietnam that would call anyone dropping napalm, agent orange, and bombs on the Vietnamese a war hero. McCain was a war criminal.

Also, for Speaker of the House, Ocasio-Cortez supported Pelosi, who oversees the blue party Congresspersons’ voting assignments, which allows some brand maintenance while ensuring that the cartel’s objective are met. As per the plan of creating a dead-end for the Green New Deal, Pelosi has already refused to consider it. Pelosi is another war criminal complicit in funding the illegal wars of our military.

Finally, two false assumptions made by those whose consciousness remains within the blue political party marketing brand charade: 1) that Ocasio-Cortez is receiving publicity because she is the real deal; on the contrary, no real progressive gets the kind of publicity that Ocasio-Cortez is getting from the corporate press without being a tool of that power structure; and, 2) that the voting system by which Ocasio-Cortez was selected is verifiable—it is not. In fact, independent exit polls prove the U.S. voting system is hacked, not by “Russians,” but by those who manufacture and program the electronic voting and counting machines.

elkojohn/February 11, 2019

As the saying goes: ‘ ‘ Even a broken clock is right twice every day. ‘ ‘ AND, only three Democratic members of the House, California Rep. Ro Khanna, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, have condemned the U.S. actions against Venezuela. AND, the rest of the treacherous Democrats have taken a break from their Hate-Trump-Syndrome to find common cause with Trump’s crimes against Venezuela. Keep swinging Caitlin.

John Coombes/February 11, 2019

Erronius/February 11, 2019

There’s one more aspect to this that you didn’t mention: we’ve all been brainwashed. Mostly while we were tots and before we got ourselves a BS detector. We were raised by parents who were brainwashed before us. We went to church, synagogue, mosque, whatever, school, sports team, frat, whatever, we got into jobs where we sucked up the values of our employers, we spent eternities watching TV, we absorb a barrage of advertising daily. It’s what passes for a culture.

Creating our own reality out of the reality that’s been created for us is a lifelong project and never quite complete. So even the freest and most enlightened souls among us are still riddled with unexamined assumptions that can turn against us and make us act against our best instincts every time. In that sense, the opposition of each of us is controlled from within, up to a point.

Ishkabibble/February 11, 2019

Good comment. .. But even the most stupid and brainwashed human beings fully realize the most important “facts of life”. Every one of today’s 7.4 billion people requires food, shelter, warmth and a place to defecate. Just exactly HOW each of those 7.4 billion “accesses” those necessities of life and just exactly WHAT “RESTRICTIONS” are placed upon that access (buttons to push or hoops to jump through), is precisely what “human life” (within The Matrix of the day) is and has always been about. Let’s put it this way — from day 1 of their lives, whether that was 10,000 years ago or 10 years ago, Some People have had unlimited access while others literally starve to death.

mike k/February 11, 2019

Discerning the truth in our world awash in complex lies and hidden agendas is difficult and often impossible. Stick with basic home truths and you will avoid unnecessary confusion and delusion. Infinitely detailed knowledge of how evil works is not needed to fight it. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck….

Caitlin urges people to learn the narratives. That is good advice. Until they’ve learnt the narratives, people have a difficult time distinguishing between what is narrative and what is truth. . But how do they learn the META narratives that really govern our thinking? These META narratives are very powerful and virtually all mainstream media pay homage to these META narratives. . There is a way to learn the META narratives: engage with alternative media. Read what Caitlin and others alt-media sites have to say. You can quickly learn which of these sites are most reputable by which ones attract smart commentary so read the comments!! . It takes some time and some brain waves but it’s as important to rid yourself of toxic narratives as it is to rid yourself of toxic food. Like food, you have to learn where to get what is healthy and wholesome.

I guess I should give an examples of a META narratives. .USA is a democracy No. Most observers now say USA is a plutocracy: a republic controlled by an oligarchy via a money-based political system. Other “western democracies” have a similar structure at heart – that’s why we see Yellow Vest protesters in France. .USA is always the ‘good guy’ in foreign relations. Just in recent history, we’ve done bad things that many recognize: – Madeleine Albright said “we think it’s worth it” wrt the death of 500k Iraqi children – Obama-Hillary turned a UN-approved “No-fly Zone” into a bombing campaign in Libya – Obama allowed ISIS to grow and intelligence was doctored to play down the threat – Obama’s “train and equip” program funneled arms to extremists – USA is ‘meddling’ in Venezuelan elections and internal politics . Russia is a threat, Putin is an evil madman – USA/NATO has broken promises and worked to undermine peace ever since the end of the Cold War – Russia became a “threat” only after they: 1) allied with China, and 2) took measured steps to protect their clear and unassailable interests. – Investigations into Russian ‘election meddling’ and influence on Trump have turned up nothing substantial

Michael Weddington/February 11, 2019

Spanky/February 11, 2019

Knackers/February 11, 2019

And just for the record, powerful Jews using dark money to control the agenda of U.S. Congress from behind the scenes is not an antisemitic KKK conspiracy theory, its a fact of life in Washington’s long established elite fascist Anglo-Zionist sexual blackmail system of control.

ROD/February 12, 2019

M1K3L/March 7, 2019

Helmut Beintner/February 11, 2019

We are all Human with our own thoughts. It is other People,s “JOB” to manipulate them. BTW any good American President will be disposed off, if they do not follow Orders from the elite. Like they say : Common sense is not that common !

Old Joe/February 11, 2019

And of course, this is a very dynamic situation. Those who want to rule us have a lot of power and a lot of money. Thus, a person who is a committed activist and leader who is doing good for the world and for people may suddenly find themselves blackmailed or bought-off and thus switch sides. They won’t announce this of course, because it is there reputation and good name that is being bought by the forces of evil. Thus this is not a one-time only, pass the captcha and we know you are legitimate forever sort of judgement to make. But is one where we keep evaluating people, causes, etc…. “in the moment”. ————— One general rule I have is that those who are trying to unite us are our friends. Those that try to divide us are not friends. Its not fool-proof nor hacker-proof of course. But its a good indication. We will need a lot of people if we are ever going to change things. Our enemies are powerful and have great resources. We will need millions if not billions of people in the streets, on our side. Thus, those that tell us that we can not stand with this person or that group of people are not working towards such an end. But those that build bridges between people, those that brings groups of people together, they might well be working towards such an outcome. Like I said, its not fool-proof. But if one keeps the eventual goal in mind and what it might take to defeat the machine(s), then one can tell perhaps if another is moving towards or away from such a goal.

AriusArmenian/February 11, 2019

You are right that divide and rule is the standard operating procedure of the rich and powerful. They feed the major political dialectic of the time to keep us occupied against each other while they pull strings and cash in.

S/June 29, 2019

I really like your comment Old Joe, and I agree with it. After listening to someone’s ideas, I ask myself: how do I think and feel, and how am I inspired to conduct myself in the world? If I feel afraid, suspicious, depressed or separated from others, I become suspicious of their motives. If however I feel positive, empowered, connected to others and hopeful — then I pay them attention.

I was just today thinking about the issue of reputable voices being bought-off; it would certainly be tempting: “Man, with all this money I could do so much more…” but it’s a question of virtue. A really good person navigates their life by considering virtue. They also entertain possible situations before they actually occur: “If a person offered me great amounts of money to do x, would I do it? Would I thusly be jeopardising any value of mine?” Also, being offered material wealth mainly offers continued material survival. For a person who is interested in ideas, this may not be sufficiently tempting.

Like Nietzsche said in the 19th century, the spirit has fallen out of the middle. I take this to be moral values. Given that more and more people are ‘waking up’, I think it’s only a matter of time before the majority realises what’s going on and bands together.

jrkrideau/February 11, 2019

I have it on very good authority[1] that both Karl Mark and Vladimir Lenin were agents of both the Rothschilds and the Okhrana.

I don’t think that D. Trump was a Stasi informer.

1. I just made it up a movement ago but who can I believe if not me?

More seriously, there have been speculations that Okhrana infiltration and attendent financial support to the opposition may have greatly assisted in the overthrough of the Tzar. An own-goal worthy of the CIA.

Nick Riley/February 11, 2019

Tom Welsh/February 11, 2019

Exactly the parallel I was thinking of! When he first became a wandering monk, Siddhartha Gautama was never too proud to learn from masters of repute, even if he eventually concluded that they could not take him all the way.

Even when he struck out on his own and settled in his grove, he continued to put the techniques of yoga and meditation (for example) to good use.

Alan Ross/February 11, 2019

Another very useful column by Caitlin Johnstone!! There is however, one problem: who should we support and elect? Then it matters whether a person is really someone authentic or a fraud, who, even if they are not controlled opposition might still sell out. At the same time, it is very valuable to focus on learning from the message and be a critic of it (as how true and not true it is) before going on to find the flaws in the messenger. The latter often has in it the competitive dislike of respecting another person.

Steve/February 11, 2019

Whomever you want to “support and elect.” But be fully cognizant that in the end, it doesn’t really matter which branch of the plutocracy’s managerial class occupies office, it is the amount of oppression to which the people will submit, as Frederick Douglass said.

“The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.”– Eugene Debs. Sept 1, 1904

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” – Frederick Douglass

Knackers/February 11, 2019

I don’t know whether Caitlin’ is stupid, lying or just terrified of telling the truth, because its impossible to claim that one is disrupting establishment narratives if they’re going fall into line behind the dominant ideology of the ruling class and flat-out refuse to talk about the pink elephant in the living room: the extreme concentration of unaccountable Jewish power and its nefarious controlling influence over international finance and private central banking, the fundamental meta-narratives of both the mainstream and alternative media, the culture of both liberal academia and the degenerate Hollywood entertainment industry, our fake Western democracies and Big Tech monopolies (Google/Twitter/Facebook), and both Capitol Hill lobbying and the disastrous foreign policy of US militarism.

It takes less than 10 minutes of independent research to see that Jewish power is an established fact in this world, its as real as a heart attack and its the root of so many of our most pressing problems, but we’re all terrified of telling the truth about it because criticizing the unimpeachable power of this Jewish supremacist tribe and its woeful recent history of Zionist treachery and genocidal violence subjects one to an immediate and relentless smear campaign and the unforgivable crime of antisemitism…

But given that the root cause of our most urgent geopolitical problems is the rampant criminal corruption at the very top of the socio-political hierarchy stemming from an obscene concentration of immense wealth and power among a tiny circle of ruling elites, could there be a more disastrous recipe for a real nuclear holocaust in the foreseeable future than an entirely zombified civilization that’s too afraid to even name (let alone properly criticize) the one very small tribe of insecure, easily threatened but cunningly inventive racial and religious supremacists that exercises this extremely disproportionate and unaccountable power over banking, politics, media and US militarism with total impunity, because its fabricated status of “eternal victimhood” immunizes this dangerously schizoid tribe against any serious public criticism – so much so that anyone who dares to break with the terrifying mental paralysis of this cultural taboo by simply mentioning the obvious facts about Jewish power, is instantly expelled from acceptable public discourse – and by even our most passionate anti-establishment voices of critical dissent like our beloved Caitlin? Enjoy the apocalypse everyone, and don’t forget to crucify the whistle blowers!

When even voices like Caitlin side with the ruling establishment by doggedly defending our collective silence about this most urgent and critically important issue of Jewish power taking over everything, then we really are in cataclysmic danger, because we’ve got a snowflakes chance of hell of surviving this global crisis if we cannot even utter the name of our oppressors.

Jewish power is the capacity to silence any discussion of Jewish power, and its holding the world in the grip of a moral and intellectual deadlock as its tentacles stretch into every aspect of our lives, suffocating the human spirit, suppressing critical thought and attacking free speech. Is it a mere coincidence that Jewish neocons in the Bush administration were at the forefront of the American intervention in Iraq against Israeli’s biggest foreign enemy? Is an honest dialogue about the Jewish mafias role in the assassination of JFK or years of prior planning by the Israeli Mossad for the 9/11 operation a form of hate speech? Is openly discussing the dual citizen Israelis in the Pentagon who fabricated the Anthrax threat to manufacture phony evidence linking Saddam Hussein to WMD’s and Al Qaida an expression of anti-Semitic bigotry that needs to be immediately marginalized?

Who do we serve and protect by avoiding this entire complex of taboo questions by rationalizing that there is no Jewish tribe, that Jews do not act together to advance their aims, that the immensely powerful pro-Israeli lobby doesn’t really have anything much to do with Jewish interests, or that the Jewishness of the Jewish state of Israel has nothing to do with Palestinian genocide? Sure , we might feel tempted to weasel out of the problem by insisting that those powerful Jewish billionaires funding both sides of the two-party duopoly in the US are in fact promoting American interests because, for now at least, they appear to be one and the same. But this conflation of Jewish interests with American interests is nowhere more stark than in present American foreign policy. If there ever was an image reminiscent of a Jewish world conspiracy, the spectacle of the Jewish Zio-cons like Sheldon Adelson and Netanyahu’s White house proxy Jared Kushner gathered around Trump and directing policy in the Middle East must surely be it.

We can’t even talk honestly about history, and so we’re blindly repeating the same old long-term constant that connects WWI and WWI with 9/11 and the disastrous foreign policy of US-led regime change in the Middle East, and it’s this: unethical, unprincipled and dishonest American president’s being influenced by the wealthy international Jewish power brokers that support them into leading the unwilling American people into a totally unnecessary war against a sovereign country that’s deemed to be the enemy of the Jews. We’re still repeating the same mistake 100 years later, and this time its Iran.

Paraphrasing Marc Ellis: “To the entire non-Jewish world, Jews say this: ‘You will apologise for Jewish suffering again and again and again. And, when you have done apologising, you will then apologise some more. When you have apologised sufficiently we will forgive you … provided you let us do what we want with the world.”

But Caitlin isn’t controlled opposition, she’s just another unwitting dupe of the NWO agenda for a one world government. I just hope that she might one day begin to realize that we’re not lifting a finger to challenge or resist the dominant narratives of the established order by insisting that anyone who points out that we’re repeating the same old Jewish supremacist playbook that led the US into WWI, WWII, 9/11, Iraq and Syria must be immediately thrown into the metaphorical gas chamber as an anti-Semite hater and never heard from again.

Seriously, could there be a more disastrous omen for the imminent total enslavement of humanity under the global dictatorship of an Orwellian dystopian nightmare than the terminal naivety of entire populations of mind controlled zombies vigilantly rushing to the defense of their abusers by subjecting anyone who dares to utter the name of our high priests of endless of wars for profit, international banking fraud, presidential assassinations and false flag terrorism to a vicious smear campaign of vitriolic and irrational hate?

inforebelscum/February 11, 2019

Knackers, there is an old proverb that says if you set out to kill the king, you damn sure better kill the king. The question is Who is the king? Your post answers that question in no uncertain terms. Great take.

But I think Caitlin is an honest person, just very confused. I do not think she is controlled opposition and I think she is sincere about stopping wars but she loses credibility with her previously stated claim that historically the jews are right and the goyim are wrong. Stopping wars is mostly about stopping zionism. Stopping the ability to wage wars (and bring about a better economic system) requires two simple actions – simple but devastating to the money changers: outlaw usury and return the printing of money to the national governments. End the fed, audit the fed and then prosecute its members with whatever crimes against humanity are found.

Tom Welsh/February 11, 2019

inforebelscum/February 11, 2019

Anarcissie/February 11, 2019

I have a friend who is a Jew. You can tell he’s a real Jew because he has a big nose, and is nervous and smart and talks a lot. He does not seem very rich or powerful, although he gets along. One day I asked him about that, and he said, ‘I don’t know. Somehow I’ve missed the boat. I should be running a bank or the New York Times, or boffing starlets out in Hollywood, but instead I have a crap job and live in a crap apartment in a crap neighborhood in Brooklyn. I’ll tell you what. If you can put me in touch with Jew Central and get me a deal, I’ll give you ten per cent off the top.’ I don’t know how to do that, but apparently some of you all do, so here’s my proposal: hook my friend up, and I’ll split my payoff with you 50-50. Tell me that’s not a deal, Bubbele!

Erronius/February 11, 2019

Steve/February 11, 2019

Precisely, Erronius. I sometimes get the feeling that those posting idiocy like ‘Knackers’ are just Likud operatives wanting to “prove” that any criticism of the Israeli government is anti-Semitic at its core. After all: ,‘A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.‘

inforebelscum/February 11, 2019

Knackers/February 11, 2019

The meaning of the name “Jew” is very slippery and tends to shift around depending on the context, from race (biology), to ethnicity (culture), to politics (nationality) to religion (faith tradition). But I really only have an issue with those Jews who identify themselves as Jews politically…. And in this context, Jewish interests are inextricably tied up w/ Israeli interests, what touches Israel touches global Jewry, and vice versa. Purists and theoreticians may argue about the separation of Church & State or Judaism & Zionism, but in the world of real politics the connection between Zionist and Jew is hard, fast and indivisible. What we really need is a non-hateful word for people who oppose, critique or question some or all of the disproportionate tribal power exercised by various Jewish elites.

I believe that KNACKERS has hit the nail on the head with respect to excessive Israeli/ Zionist control over all power wielding institutions/entities within the US.

This is evidenced by the number of Zionist/Jewish trolls/apologists/explainers who have surfaced in this thread to vehemently denounce his comments.

If one wants to identify your rulers, just determine who you’re not allowed to criticize. To whom does this apply? Why, of course, it’s Israel and Zionism. The loyalty oath to Israel (as required by AIPAC) that our congressional representatives are essentially forced to sign is beyond the pale. Extortion, Treason or both?

Maybe this enormous elephant in the room should be skirted in order to attack other fictitious, controlling Narratves. I fully agree with Caitlin’s point of employing discernment in choosing ammunition from sources, without knowledge of their allegiance or motivation, to utilize in combating and refuting Deep State narratives. You never know how or from whom you may discover a kernel of truth that could be used in the battle.

Steve/February 11, 2019

My beef is with Israeli governmental policies with respect to the Palestinians and those who defend those policies. Their (or anyone else’s) Judaism is no concern of mine. And it shouldn’t be a concern of yours, unless of course your real problem is with Judaism itself.

inforebelscum/February 12, 2019

inforebelscum/February 11, 2019

Erronius, there is always the double standard for zionism/jews. If zionists do something bad then it is only the zionists and not all jews. But if one criticizes zionism then one is considered “anti-semite” because zionism is jewish.

jrkrideau/February 12, 2019

Ishkabibble/February 11, 2019

KNACKERS, excellent comment, but I think what is wrong with the whatever-you-want-to-call-it “system” or “arrangement” goes beyond Jewishness or Catholicness or Islamness or Indigenousness, etc-ness. BEHAVIOR, BEHAVIOR, BEHAVIOR! is what is wrong with the present arrangement! Therefore, it is that BEHAVIOR which must be indentified and corrected, regardless of WHO it is that’s doing the behaving. You are correct in stating that WHO is doing the bad behavior must be identified, again, regardless of their religion. And you are also absolutely correct that in this day of societal evolution being anti-Israeli is equated as being anti-semitic, which means that you want to re-enact the holocaust. This is insanity, so this trend must somehow be defeated. Don’t expect the Congress Of Morons to be leading the charge. .. More on topic, how do we, as single human beingss, “know” absolutely anything about anything? What IS “truth”? How do we know “truth” when we see, hear or read it? .. For just one example, WHOM do we “trust” to tell us the “truth”? How do we determine for our own individual selves “historical truth”? WHAT is the ultimate “standard” of truth? .. I sit at my computer and read an article on the NYT internet site that there is going to be a solar eclipse on June 1, and that this eclipse will be visible in certain locations on the surface of Mother Earth. The writer of the article lists several sources of astronomical information — observatories, university departments of astronomy, etc. No longer trusting the NYT to report truth, I read this same information on several diverse web sites, newspapers and MSM and alternative media. After observing all of this, I “believe with 100% certainty” that there will be an eclipse on June 1 that it will be visible in certain locations on Mother Earth. .. I “know” a “truth” — a something “about” an “event that will occur in” –the future with absolute certainty! Yippee! I report this “truth” to other human beings that I know. They will remember what I have told them, and when that eclipse occurs they will remember that what I told them turned out to be “true” (accurate). If I tell them more and more of these things, they will INEVITABLY come to “trust” that what I say in/about the future is/will turn out to be almost certainly “the truth”. .. I believe a local weather forecast with FAR LESS certainty than the “forecast” of the eclipse…….. unless I happen to be living in the Atacama Desert, where the average rainfall is about 15 mm PER YEAR and TOMORROW’S forecast is sunny and no rain at high noon. .. Even further, there was a time when the NYT and the WaPo, and the “respected” MSM TV reported a fair amount of “truth” OTHER THAN solar eclipses. That time is long gone. “History” has proven their unreliability or outright lying time and time again, especially during the last 29 years and even more especially since 9/11. .. So now it is much more difficult for me to determine “truth” — IMO, an accurate description of reality, past, present or future– of almost ANY kind. I read a long list of sources of information (narratives, propaganda, reports of reality) every day before I arrive at what I believe “the truth” to be for that day. .. Here’s a bit of truth that I know with absolute certainty. The US Empire and the transnational US ELITE — the microscopic percentage of the human population that owns or controls the vast majority of wealth, land and large scale capital equipment for its own astronomcal profit – are today in a state of absolute panic. They are panicking because they know with 100% certainty that unless they very soon get total control over absolutely EVERYTHING that their bewildered herds of voters can possibly see, read and watch every single day of their lives, the literally insatiable Elite parasites will not be able to maintain the lifestyle to which they feel that they are entitled. .. This Elite does not DO “running down the street, screaming at the top of their lungs” panic. They realize, in panic, that what they MUST do is COMPLETELY ELIMINATE all sources of information over which they do not have complete control. This is EXACTLY what we see happening today – formerly trusted, respected MSM spitting out near 100% lies – PROPAGANDA – about ANYTHING of great economic or geopolitical importance, and trying like hell, doing whatever it takes, to get alternative/competing sources of information being either outright eliminated or brought under total Elite control. .. IMO, we’ll know that the end is near and nuclear war just around the corner when AntiWar, RT, Sputnik News, Pravda, Tass, World Socialist Web Site, ZeroHedge, Paul Craig Roberts.org, Breitbart, InfoWars TruthDig, Information Clearing House, MediaLens, Consortium News, East-West Accord, The Canary, New Matilda, Al Jazeera, Russia Insider, The Intercept, CounterPunch, GlobalResearch.ca, CraigMurray.org, JohnPilger.com all suddenly disappear from the worldwide web. (And, btw, just exactly WHOM are you going to contact in order to ask just exactly WHY those web sites have suddenly disappeared? And just exactly WHAT are YOU going to do if you DO manage to contact your ISP, politician, the POTUS etc. and their answer is “I don’t know”?) .. Joseph Goebbels was absolutely correct in his principles of effective propaganda. .. 1. Propagandist must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion. .. 2. PROPAGANDA MUST BE PLANNED AND EXECUTED BY ONLY ONE AUTHORITY. .. a. IT MUST ISSUE ALL THE PROPAGANDA DIRECTIVES. ..b. It must explain propaganda directives to important officials and maintain their morale. ..c. It must oversee other agencies’ activities which have propaganda consequences .. 3. The propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action. .. 4. Propaganda must affect the enemy’s policy and action. ..a. BY SUPPRESSING PROPAGANDISTICALLY DESIRABLE MATERIAL WHICH CAN PROVIDE THE ENEMY WITH USEFUL INTELLIGENCE. ..b. BY OPENLY DISSEMINATING PROPAGANDA WHOSE CONTENT OR TONE CAUSES THE ENEMY TO DRAW THE DESIRED CONCLUSIONS. ..c. By goading the enemy into revealing vital information about himself ..d. By making no reference to a desired enemy activity when any reference would discredit that activity .. ..5. DECLASSIFIED, OPERATIONAL INFORMATION MUST BE AVAILABLE TO IMPLEMENT A PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN. .. 6. To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and MUST BE TRANSMITTED THROUGH AN ATTENTION-GETTING MEDIUM. .. 7. CREDIBILITY ALONE MUST DETERMINE WHETHER PROPAGANDA OUTPUT SHOULD BE TRUE OR FALSE. .. 8. The purpose, content and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; the strength and effects of an expose; and the nature of current propaganda campaigns determine whether enemy propaganda should be ignored or refuted. .. 9. Credibility, intelligence, and the possible effects of communicating determine whether propaganda materials should be censored. .. 10. Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy’s prestige or lends support to the propagandist’s own objective. .. 11. Black rather than white propaganda may be employed when the latter is less credible or produces undesirable effects. .. 12. PROPAGANDA MAY BE FACILITATED BY LEADERS WITH PRESTIGE. .. 13. PROPAGANDA MUST BE CAREFULLY TIMED. ..a. The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda. ..b. A propaganda campaign must begin at the optimum moment ..c. A PROPAGANDA THEME MUST BE REPEATED, BUT NOT BEYOND SOME POINT OF DIMINISHING EFFECTIVENESS .. 14. PROPAGANDA MUST LABEL EVENTS AND PEOPLE WITH DISTINCTIVE PHRASES OR SLOGANS. ..a. They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses ..b. They must be capable of being easily learned ..c. THEY MUST BE UTILIZED AGAIN AND AGAIN, BUT ONLY IN APPROPRIATE SITUATIONS ..d. They must be boomerang-proof .. 15. Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events. .. 16. PROPAGANDA TO THE HOME FRONT MUST CREATE AN OPTIMUM ANXIETY LEVEL. ..a. PROPAGANDA MUST REINFORCE ANXIETY CONCERNING THE CONSEQUENCES OF DEFEAT ..b. Propaganda must diminish anxiety (other than concerning the consequences of defeat) which is too high and which cannot be reduced by people themselves .. 17. Propaganda to the home front must diminish the impact of frustration. ..a. Inevitable frustrations must be anticipated ..b. Inevitable frustrations must be placed in perspective .. 18. PROPAGANDA MUST FACILITATE THE DISPLACEMENT OF AGGRESSION BY SPECIFYING THE TARGETS FOR HATRED. ,, 19. Propaganda cannot immediately affect strong counter-tendencies; instead it must offer some form of action or diversion, or both. .. Does humanity have a hope in hell of surviving? If escalating recent events are any indication, not much.

ROD/February 12, 2019

“…its impossible to claim that one is disrupting establishment narratives if they’re going fall into line behind the dominant ideology of the ruling class and flat-out refuse to talk about the pink elephant in the living room…” . Seeing pink elephants, eh? You have an interesting living room there. MKULTRA victim?

Petra Liverani/February 11, 2019

I very much doubt that Chomsky is paid to tell lies. Very much doubt that. But it can still suit people to go along with part of the status quo even if they come out on certain aspects. I’d call Chomsky a gatekeeper like so many others.

The 9/11 story is not “fishy”, it’s completely false and most evidently so. In fact, the perps try to make it seem as “fishy” as possible, that is, put out numerous theories to confound and bamboozle – let it happen on purpose (LIHOP), make it happen on purpose (MIHOP – this is very much what it was though), thermite, thermate, nanothermite, directed energy weapons, missiles, military jets, etc, Saudis, Pakistanis, Israelis, you name it.

As I say in my comment above all you need to prove 9/11 was an inside conspiracy is the 2.25 seconds of free fall acceleration in the collapse of WTC-7. And then logic and evidence tell you that the best-kept secret of 9/11 is that death and injury were staged. That’s it!

PB/February 16, 2019

Calgacus/February 11, 2019

You ever think that Chomsky might be right? That his position on JFK, 9/11, which incidentally is the same as all of academia – might be true and based on science and common sense and credible history and that 9/11 truth, JFK etc might be the CIA psyop?

inforebelscum/February 11, 2019

Calgacus, have you done any personal research one way or the other (actually one should research both sides in order to be fully informed) on JFK or 911? Do you believe 100% in the official stories of JFK and 911?

Anarcissie/February 11, 2019

The official stories seem incomplete, but they do seem more credible than the favorite opposed theories. I was particularly interested in 9/11 because I lived and worked in the area so I did quite a bit of research (for me, anyway). I don’t know what any of the theories about it are supposed to prove, other than something completely illogical like ‘the Rothschilds did it.’ The American ruling class has never had any difficulty in starting wars, as witness Vietnam and Iraq 2003, both of which served no good purpose, yet were supported not only by the leadership and the media, but most of the public. As a psyop, however, promoting arguments about 9/11 has been a reliable way of starting controversies and squabbles between the ruling class’s opponents and thus neutralizing them.

inforebelscum/February 11, 2019

Paul Spencer/February 11, 2019

Chomsky’s position on 9/11 is similar to Caitlin’s point in this article: he has other priorities than pursuing other folks’ priorities. It’s even more similar in that he concentrates on changing the narratives about the hegemonic designs of western ‘democracies’ centered in, energized by, and essentially controlled by the oligarchy within the U.S.A. More similar yet, they both have a class analysis and a class bias. Somewhat difficult in fact to separate the politics of these two persons, but, interestingly, if they do disagree on some specifics, I think that they can each abide the other’s position and go on to agree on most matters.

As to Buillding 7, Chomsky says that he doesn’t know what happened and doesn’t have the expertise to add anything to the question. As to Bush’ involvement, he believes the narrative that Richard Clark has provided to the effect that the administration of that era was uninterested in the subject that became 9/11.

Jared/February 11, 2019

Petra Liverani/February 11, 2019

Could not agree more! One propaganda technique is creating all sorts of red herring trails that people seem to be so eager to follow, thereby being distracted from important information. So often the evidence required to prove something is so utterly tiny. I think it’s a false assumption that you need to make your case with as much evidence as possible as it just gives ammunition to those who disagree to nitpick and quibble over it. Just give as much as is needed to prove your case.

All that is needed to prove that 9/11 was an inside conspiracy is the 2.25 seconds of free fall acceleration in the collapse of WTC-7 at 5.20pm on 9/11. For free fall to have occurred, all WTC-7’s 82 steel support columns had to give way at virtually the same time and for that to have occurred they needed to have been severed by cutting charges – in other words – controlled demolition. What we see is a slight kink in the middle as the central columns fail fractionally earlier to produce the most perfect implosion the world has ever seen. Simply breathtaking.https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/collapse-of-wtc-7.html

norecovery/February 11, 2019

OTOH I suggest one should not judge a source solely on the basis of their stated position (or lack thereof) on a particular event or issue such as 9/11 — Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and Julian Assange come to mind. Nor based on someone’s known associations, which may include shady or high-profile figures.

Could not agree more and I say it myself. I think it’s hilarious when people call me a disinfo agent but I think it’s also dangerous because it gets to the point where the term has no meaning and you feel as though you cannot tell who’s who – but then, as you say, it always gets back to judge by what is said and the thing is, “controlled opposition” or “disinformation” agents can provide excellent information that is part of their “truth” output. Essentially, what they do is mix truth with lies and the truth can be given in a way you will not find anywhere else. At the moment, I have come to suspect very strongly that the founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Richard Gage, is actually a disinformation agent in the “truth mixed with lies” 9/11 propaganda campaign, although no doubt many of the group’s members are genuine.

The 9/11 propaganda campaign is extremely counterintuitive. What the perps decided was that controlled demolition would be too obvious so instead of trying to futilely suppress it, they transformed it into a magical propaganda asset! They decided to simply have all the truthers focus exclusively on controlled demolition, minimise their focus on the faked plane crashes and completely be fooled by all the direct lies stating and propaganda implying that death and injury were real rather than staged. 9/11 was a psyop and in psyops you don’t do things for real unless you want them for real and you certainly don’t kill 3,000 of your own citizens if you don’t want that for real. They didn’t want it for real, of course, so it was staged. They reasoned – and it seems with spectacular success – that the truthers would be completely hamstrung in getting the truth of 9/11 out when they were saddled themselves with the big lie that 3,000 people were killed. The two pieces of the 9/11 puzzle “Inside conspiracy” and “real death and injury” simply do not fit together. They repel each other like magnets. So the truthers have been completely hamstrung. Not that convincing people that 9/11 was a complete hoax is any easy task either, of course. But I think the perps got it right in suppressing the truth of staged death and injury. Very right in that. They understand us all so well.

Getting back to Richard Gage. He gives the best explanation of how the buildings came down so if he is a disinformation agent, I am still very appreciative of his tutorials on those buildings. The perps really are very generous in telling us what they’re really up to I have to say.

Greg Strebel/February 11, 2019

Petra, if you haven’t encountered James Corbett’s work on 9/11, or Richard Grove’s personal experiences, you may find their respective websites quite interesting. corbettreport.com and tragedyandhope.com

Petra Liverani/February 11, 2019

Greg, Richard Grove is a disinfo agent whose purpose is to put out propaganda that certain people were targeted in the buildings which is part of the perpetuation of the lie that death and injury were real on 9/11. While truthers commonly refer to 9/11 as a psyop they generally believe that death and injury were real. But real death and injury does not fit “psyop”. If, for no other reason, a psyop must follow rules because agency staff and media are involved and, generally, they will not be involved in real death and injury, especially for something the size of 9/11. The JFK assassination was also a form of psyop and it did involve the real death of at least one person and it also involved police and media but it involved far fewer people than 9/11.

ROD/February 12, 2019

Petra Liverani/February 13, 2019

Sean Harvey/February 11, 2019

Wise words. Sometimes I even wonder about Chomsky – who is pretty much the gold standard of dissidence – but any time someone mentions that the official 9/11 story is fishy as hell he gets as unreasonably oppositional as anyone will ever see him. So yeah, I pick and choose among narratives – not narrators.

It’s terribly tempting to want to feed the hungry proletariat the meal they desire. But each of those comics you mention have all made me laugh hard. Much of late night comedy now sadly is remarkably interchangeable. Don’t despair https://t.co/MePoHPzcJq

@RobSchneider This is exactly why I reserve a special hatred for comedians like Bill Maher, Steve Colbert, Samantha Bee and Trevor Noah who sell their talent to the churning out of propaganda for establishment power structures. https://t.co/vTVPNe3kU8

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Excerpt from "Mainstream 'Centrists' Pose The Greatest Ideological Threat To Us All":

People like Ashton Kutcher imagine that the so-called “center” is called that because it sits smack dab in the middle of the ideological spectrum between communism and fascism, right in that moderate sweet spot that respects capitalism and private ownership without flying off the deep end into Nazi-like tyranny. In reality, the status quo exists entirely outside any left-right paradigm. It’s neither “left” nor “right” to give total control of the western world to an alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies who seek to expand their power and wealth by destroying our ecosystem, waging endless wars, and gradually shoring up more and more control of their citizenry via internet censorship, surveillance and police militarization. It’s just crazy.

I’m picking on Ashton not because he occupies some special place in all this, but because he doesn’t. He’s just an illustration of how blind people have become to the real threat that’s right in front of them, and how normalized insanity has become.

People who identify as “left” see the ruling power establishment as right-wing, people who identify as “right” see the ruling power establishment as left-wing, and people who identify as “center” see themselves as moderates whose normal, healthy way of life is under threat by the “far right” and “far left”. But really all that’s happening is a few assholes fucking over everyone else, which is no more “left” or “right” than a terrorist attack. The left versus right argument doesn’t even make sense until this far more pressing issue has been resolved. A Bernie supporter and a Trump supporter are arguing about left versus right while trapped in a room with a tiger who’s eating them both alive.

Excerpt from "Mainstream 'Centrists' Pose The Greatest Ideological Threat To Us All":

People like Ashton Kutcher imagine that the so-called “center” is called that because it sits smack dab in the middle of the ideological spectrum between communism and fascism, right in that moderate sweet spot that respects capitalism and private ownership without flying off the deep end into Nazi-like tyranny. In reality, the status quo exists entirely outside any left-right paradigm. It’s neither “left” nor “right” to give total control of the western world to an alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies who seek to expand their power and wealth by destroying our ecosystem, waging endless wars, and gradually shoring up more and more control of their citizenry via internet censorship, surveillance and police militarization. It’s just crazy.

I’m picking on Ashton not because he occupies some special place in all this, but because he doesn’t. He’s just an illustration of how blind people have become to the real threat that’s right in front of them, and how normalized insanity has become.

People who identify as “left” see the ruling power establishment as right-wing, people who identify as “right” see the ruling power establishment as left-wing, and people who identify as “center” see themselves as moderates whose normal, healthy way of life is under threat by the “far right” and “far left”. But really all that’s happening is a few assholes fucking over everyone else, which is no more “left” or “right” than a terrorist attack. The left versus right argument doesn’t even make sense until this far more pressing issue has been resolved. A Bernie supporter and a Trump supporter are arguing about left versus right while trapped in a room with a tiger who’s eating them both alive.

Excerpt from "Mainstream 'Centrists' Pose The Greatest Ideological Threat To Us All":

If people could wake up one morning and suddenly see what the ruling power establishment is doing to them every single day, there’d suddenly be vastly more outrage directed at the so-called “centrists”, and a lot less focus on politically impotent fringe organization like white nationalists and Antifa. This is not to say that all fringe ideologies are harmless, just that none of them pose anywhere near the immediate existential threat that is posed by the current order.

There’s an old joke: A duck swims past two fish and calls down, “Hey fellas! How’s the water?” The fish look at each other for a minute and then one of them asks, “What the hell is water?”

People don’t see the dangers of mainstream “centrism” for the same reason fish don’t see water. In reality, the only reason such an ideology gets labeled “centrism” at all is because it has been normalized and made mainstream by generations of plutocratic media propaganda. The ideological group which supports the status quo omnicidal, ecocidal oppression machine by giving you a choice between two warmongering oligarchic parties in fake elections that never make any difference is nowhere near a politically moderate position by any stretch of the imagination.

Excerpt from "Mainstream 'Centrists' Pose The Greatest Ideological Threat To Us All":

If people could wake up one morning and suddenly see what the ruling power establishment is doing to them every single day, there’d suddenly be vastly more outrage directed at the so-called “centrists”, and a lot less focus on politically impotent fringe organization like white nationalists and Antifa. This is not to say that all fringe ideologies are harmless, just that none of them pose anywhere near the immediate existential threat that is posed by the current order.

There’s an old joke: A duck swims past two fish and calls down, “Hey fellas! How’s the water?” The fish look at each other for a minute and then one of them asks, “What the hell is water?”

People don’t see the dangers of mainstream “centrism” for the same reason fish don’t see water. In reality, the only reason such an ideology gets labeled “centrism” at all is because it has been normalized and made mainstream by generations of plutocratic media propaganda. The ideological group which supports the status quo omnicidal, ecocidal oppression machine by giving you a choice between two warmongering oligarchic parties in fake elections that never make any difference is nowhere near a politically moderate position by any stretch of the imagination.